


Glory Days

by jj_writes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Diner Date, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Football, Gay Keith (Voltron), Klance Reverse Bang 2018, M/M, Main Cast - Freeform, Minor Alfor/Coran (Voltron), Minor Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Motorcycle ride, Mutual Pining, Numerous side characters and appearances, Rivalry, Social Butterfly/Lone Wolf, Star Quarterback, Theater Kid, bad boy, motorcycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-25 01:51:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14368332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jj_writes/pseuds/jj_writes
Summary: Keith, Garrison High’s resident biker kid, gets a lot of attention from girls he’s not particularly interested in. Lance, Garrison High’s star quarterback, gives a lot of attention to girls that aren’t particularly interested in him. It only makes sense that they’d secretly be interested in each other.





	Glory Days

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution for the Klance Reverse Bang 2018! I'm the writer and you can most easily find me on this account or at my twitter [here,](https://twitter.com/markiplayers) and the rest of my team is as follows:
> 
> Virvanna is an extremely skilled artist and provided the accompanying art for this piece please go and support her post [here.](https://virvanna-art.tumblr.com/post/173173766258/my-pieces-for-the-klancereversebang-link-to)
> 
> Ashley is an exceptional beta and I appreciate everything she did for me during this fic, she is also a writer so you can support her [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessionalMess/pseuds/ProfessionalMess)
> 
> Thank you for your support, enjoy!

The first bell rang, echoing across the courtyard to announce that classes would begin soon. Instantaneously all of the freshmen scattered, afraid of being late. The rest of the students milling around outside knew better; this wasn’t their first year at the high school, and they knew they had an extra couple of minutes to finish up their stories of summer and conversations about classes. The football team currently perched on the front stairwell would be late to first hour, just as they were the first day of school every year. It was tradition to watch everyone enter the building, since it was the best way to check out the student body: the new kids, the kids that had gotten hot over the summer, and the kids that had beefed up enough to play varsity.

“Ooh, check out Plaxum,” Lance grinned, not so casually looking the junior up and down. He was directing the comment towards Hunk, the team’s fullback, but the girl and her friends clearly heard as they quickened their paces and walked into the school, giggling all the way.

“C’mon, dude,” Hunk laughed, shaking his head and bumping Lance’s shoulder. They had been at this game for a while, pointing out everyone that caught their eye. “School hasn’t even started yet. Cool it on the underclassmen, would you?”

“Ozar grew six inches,” Lance continued, ignoring his best friend entirely and continuing to scope out the other teenagers walking by. “We already have Nelson as running back, otherwise he’d be a good fit. Might be useful for the basketball team.” He paused. A devilish grin slowly stretched across his face, one that always spelled trouble. “I wonder if he has abs.”

“Dude! Enough already!” Hunk laughed, shoving Lance harder this time. The second bell rang then, and Lance finally tore his attention away from the last of the students running into the school. He turned towards Hunk with a smile still plastered across his face, his amusement clear in his voice.

“I can’t help it! It’s the last first day of high school I’ll ever have. Let me have my fun!”

Hunk responded by rolling his eyes, turning around to chat with the rest of the team and leaving Lance to do whatever his heart desired. Nearly all of the students were inside, so there wasn’t much to look at, except for the few kids that had evidently decided to get a headstart on skipping.  

That is, there’s wasn’t much to look at until the rev of an engine announced a certain someone’s arrival. Lance watched the blur of a motorcycle speed into the parking lot, only slowing down once it was directly in front of a parking space.

“Is that Kogane?” a football player behind him asked. Everyone still outside was paying attention now. They watched the rider park and dismount the bike as if they’d done it a million times before. They removed their helmet quickly and shook out their hair, which Lance could see was just as black as the rest of their belongings.

“That’s definitely Kogane,” Lance belatedly replied, the awe evident in his voice. “I’d recognize that mullet anywhere.”

The rider, positively identified as Garrison High School’s very own Keith Kogane, was unaware of his audience. He ran a hand through his hair to counteract the lasting effects of the helmet and pocketed his keys, then began his stroll towards the school, helmet swinging in his hands all the while. Once he got closer, he finally realized people were watching him and his step faltered for a second before he continued on. After looking over the football team as a whole, his eyes landed on Lance’s face and lingered there. Keith wasn’t even giving him a look, just staring at him with a blank expression. He felt his face flush in response.

“Nice bike, Kogane,” Hunk complimented loudly, saving his best friend from the agonizingly awkward staring contest he had found himself in. Keith fluidly moved his gaze over to Hunk, the corner of his lips quirking upwards in a smirk. He didn’t say anything, just raised two of his fingers and gave Hunk a grateful salute. Looking forward again he bounded up the stairs, past the football team and into the school.

“What was that all about?”

Lance jerked his head away from Keith, who he’d subconsciously kept watching even after their weird eye contact moment. Hunk was staring at him with one eyebrow raised, waiting on an answer to his question.

“Nothing!” Lance quickly responded. It wasn’t actually nothing, of course, and Hunk knew it. Lance just wasn’t ready to spill the beans yet. Or ever. He’d secretly had a huge crush on Kogane for pretty much his entire life, and he couldn’t imagine ever telling Hunk about it. Keith was attractive and cool, and Lance couldn’t help but take notice of it throughout the years they’d spent at the same school. He would never admit it, though, and never to his best friend that would absolutely mock him for liking the one guy that would probably never like him back. “Nothing, I just… like his bike. It’s all red and black and stuff. He probably even built it himself. It’s just cool, and.. yeah. The bike is awesome.”

Hunk snorted. “Mmm-hmm,” he said, the sarcasm in the humming noise very apparent.

“Shut up!” Lance squawked, smacking him on the arm before standing from the step and turning to face his friends. Since he was the quarterback, he was generally regarded as the captain and leader of sorts, and his team almost always let him call the shots. “Let’s head to first hour, guys.”

More than a couple minutes late, the football team finally meandered inside the school and shuffled off to their respective classes, calling to each other down the hallway until the last possible moment.

After entering the school himself, Keith had stopped in the hallway before his history class to talk to Lotor. They weren’t exactly friends, so they hadn’t seen each other even once during the summer, but during school the pair of them were loners that hung out together when there was nothing better to do. Rather than talk about how the last three months had gone, they just nodded at each other and put away their belongings in their respective nearby lockers. They’d see each other at their usual lunch table, anyways.

Once he had the things he needed, Keith shut his locker with a metallic bang and finally headed towards class. He was probably close to ten minutes late, but figured it didn’t really matter since the first day of class was usually reserved for going over the syllabus. This assumption is why he was so surprised when he almost ran into someone being berated by their teacher, Mr. Smythe, just inside the door to World History.

“...and being on the football team doesn’t give you the excuse to arrive to my class late, Mr. McClain!” Mr. Smythe was lecturing, waving his hands around wildly as he did. The class watched in amused silence as the teacher went ballistic, his voice becoming higher and higher in pitch the longer he went on. “And another thing-”

He stopped mid sentence and looked at Keith over Lance’s shoulder, his face somehow becoming even redder than it had been previously to see another tardy student. Lance turned just slightly at the interruption, finally noticing that someone was behind him. Keith stepped around him and placed a hand on Mr. Smythe’s shoulder, looking him square in the face.

“Coran. It’s the football’s team tradition to be late for the first day of class. I’m the one without an excuse. If it’s really a big deal, just stick us with detention and call it good.”

Coran was typically referred to as Mr. Smythe during class, but since Keith was a former theater kid, he knew him well enough to just call him by his name. That connection alone kept the overly dramatic Mr. Smythe from flipping his lid, and the class watched in awe as Keith clapped down on his shoulder twice in a friendly gesture, then headed towards his seat with a smirk.

Lance glanced around at his peers, but they were all either snickering at him or looking after Keith. He couldn’t help but notice Plaxum—the same girl he had been checking out minutes prior—lean in close and mutter, “Keith is SO hot!” to her friend across the aisle. He flashed a fake smile at the teacher and rushed to his seat, his face flushed with embarrassment at the situation. He looked over at Keith, frowning at being upstaged, but the other tragically wasn’t paying attention to him anymore.

Lance scoffed under his breath, drawing his eyes to the surface of the desk in front of him as he fiddled with his fingers. “Whatever, Kogane,” he muttered to himself, pretending he didn’t care. However, considering that his eyes seemed to drift towards Keith more than once during the fifty (forty, since he was late) minute long class, he was doing a pretty bad job at not caring. He’d do better at not caring tomorrow, he decided, when Keith didn’t look so hot in his leather jacket.

 

——

 

“Ha! I got a 98 on the history quiz!” Lance cheered, shoving his paper under Pidge’s nose for her to look at. She rolled her eyes and continued pecking at her screen, clearly uninterested. Lance whined and shoved it directly under her glasses instead.

“Hey!” she screeched, pushing it away and looking back at her phone in horror. “You made me lose in 8-ball against Matt!” Pidge slammed the phone down on the desk and raised a pointed finger at Lance. “He’s never gonna let me live this down, you dick!” She made a disgusted noise of finality and poked him in the nose, making him laugh and push her hand away.

“You didn’t even get the highest score in class,” she mocked, dropping the outraged act with a heavy sigh and instead sporting a mischievous grin. “Kogane did.”

Lance gasped, betrayed. “What?!”

He looked to the back of the room at the table two rows behind his and Pidge’s, and sure enough, Keith was examining his paper with a bright red ‘100’ circled and underlined on the front.

Lance whipped back around with a huff, positively fuming. “He’s hotter than me, cooler than me, and now he’s smarter than me, too?! What has this world _become_?!”

Pidge—who was back on her phone, presumably starting up another game of 8-ball with her elder brother—donned a sweet voice and asked as innocently as possible, “He’s hot to you?”

“You’re impossible,” he sighed, slumping down onto the table in defeat. The school year had barely even begun, and Lance was suffering already. He had known Keith Kogane his whole life, but this was the first year they had bumped into each other so much and it was absolutely killing him. The universe was definitely deciding to screw with Lance by making the hottest boy at school also his biggest pet peeve. While he enjoyed a little competition—well, a lot of completion; he was a football player, after all—he didn’t enjoy losing. Besides the initial embarrassing debacle in World History, it seemed that every other day was reserved for some sort of incident indirectly caused by Keith.

For example, in Chemistry the week prior, Lance was too busy watching Keith put his hair up into a ponytail to pay attention to the dangerous chemicals in his hands. He nearly scorched Allura’s eyebrows off from the explosion that resulted when he put a whole vial of acid into their concoction rather than the instructed couple drops. Totally Keith’s fault; ponytails should be illegal. Or when he was in the lunch line and got distracted by Keith striding into the stuffy cafeteria and smoothly taking off his leather jacket. Entirely not his fault when he was pushed forward in the line, and his entire tray of spaghetti coated Zethrid’s back. He was almost pummelled for that one.

The two point difference of scores on the history test was simply the cherry on top of all the obnoxious experiences regarding Keith Kogane he’d had to endure. It was only the second week of school and if he kept on like this, Lance wasn’t sure he would survive his senior year.

“Before you head to your next class,” Mr. Smythe interjected into his noisy classroom, pausing for a moment to allow everyone to quiet down, “I have a list of everyone ineligible to participate in the fall fun day on Monday unless they complete all of their unserved seat time or detentions. Today is your last day to serve those hours during study halls or in my room for an hour after school, so make sure you see to them, otherwise you will be sitting in detention instead of participating in the activities!”

Lance perked up with the mention of the fall fun day. It was homecoming week next week, and not only was it one of the most important football games of the season, but it also came with games and activities. He turned to Pidge, immediately as enthusiastic as he usually was.

“I’m gonna play dodgeball the entire three hours we have!” he cheered, ecstatic. He lowered his voice and dawned a very deadpan face to continue, “Me and Hunk are literally going to murder everyone.”

Pidge put her phone in her purse and turned to him, apologetically unapologetic.

“Actually,” she told him, “I’m stealing Hunk away to the game room. Sorry, pal.”

“Ugh, you’re the worst person I know and you’re ruining my life,” he groaned, but he wasn’t as upset as before. Although his best friend wouldn’t be there to help him crush the competition, Lance was always excited for dodgeball. Hardly anything could ruin that.

“...Lance McClain and Keith Kogane are the only two with one hour of detention each to serve.” Mr. Smythe continued in the background, catching Lance’s attention. He froze, his eyes wide. No dodgeball would definitely ruin his excitement.

He whipped around to where Mr. Smythe was still reading names off of his list of detentions, outraged. “What?! When did I get a detention?”

“The very first day of school, when you decided to be late to my class,” Mr. Smythe responded offhandedly.

Lance’s jaw dropped. He was actually receiving punishment for something the entire football team partook in _every year?_ It was totally unfair, he thought. He was the freaking quarterback, for crying out loud!

“Coran must be in a good mood this year,” Keith piped up from his seat in the back, texting away. He looked up from his phone to grin at him. “I usually have a solid twenty hours of detention by now.”

The class snickered as the bell rang, everyone jumping up from their seats to go to second hour. Pidge snorted at Lance’s expression and grabbed her bag, lightly punching him in the shoulder to break him out of his stupor before heading to her math class.

“I expect to see the both of you in detention,” Mr. Smythe smiled cheerily, glancing between Keith and Lance as they shuffled past. Keith smiled back, albeit sarcastically, but Lance stormed out of the classroom, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He was already in a bad mood again; the coach would not be happy he was missing an hour of practice to sit in detention, but there was no way he was missing dodgeball on Monday.

During lunch, Keith kept noticing a certain someone in a letterman’s jacket staring at him. The usual lunch groups had formed, which was why Keith could pinpoint Lance’s withering gaze from the long table at the front of the cafeteria that held the football team and accompanying cheerleaders. Keith’s own table was in the middle by the wall, which was the best place to see everyone.

Lotor was on his phone to his left, and Matt and Pidge were chatting away rapidly to his right. Rolo was probably off getting high somewhere behind the school. It was nice to have relatively the same routine every day, but Keith kept getting distracted by Lance’s inability to stop staring at him. In fact, the staring hadn’t even begun that day, but on the very first day of school. He wondered what he could’ve done to the quarterback that made him a target for those shiny brown eyes.

“Do you think he blames me for him getting detention?” he mused aloud, picking at his mashed potatoes, staring right back. Lance quickly turned his gaze away, pretending he hadn’t been caught even though he very clearly had.

“Hm?” Lotor asked, glancing up from his phone. Keith prepared to repeat himself but changed his mind and shook his head instead.

“Nothing, never mind.”

Besides first hour, Keith also shared his fifth and seventh hour with Lance. Throughout both of those classes, Lance wouldn’t stop staring. He wondered if he was about to get jumped by the football team or something, mentally preparing to defend himself if he needed to.

When he later wandered into Coran’s classroom, fashionably late as always, Keith saw that Lance was doing the exact opposite of what he had been doing earlier; he was staring intently at his phone as if looking up would cause him to spontaneously combust. Keith scoffed and pointedly sat at the far end of the room as far away as he could get. It couldn’t be considered ignoring because they hadn’t said a memorable two words to each other that entire year. They didn’t know each other well enough for it to actually be ignoring. Instead, they were just really, really focused on the blank screens of their phones.

“Keith, Lance. Nice to see you!” greeted Coran, striding into the room carrying a large stack of loose papers and books in his arms. He plopped the pile onto his desk unceremoniously, then looked at his audience of the two he had greeted and a random sophomore asleep in the back.

“So, the rules of detention are this: don’t leave until four. Also, don’t kill anyone.” He grinned as if he’d just told the funniest joke imaginable. Neither Keith or Lance grinned back. Coran cleared his throat. “Er… that’s it. I’ll, uh, let you get back to it, then!” He grinned one last time, then sat down in his office chair.

Keith and Lance went back to pointedly ignoring each other.

After about ten minutes of awkward, forced silence, the door to the room burst open and slammed against the wall.

“Coran!” Allura screeched, running into the room with a panicked expression on her face. “I think my dad just set the chemistry lab on fire and Principal Slav already left and Dad told me not to call the fire department yet but I am _freaking_ out!”

Coran immediately bolted up out of his chair and straight out the door, grabbing a fire extinguisher off the wall on the way, Allura following close behind. Keith and Lance glanced at the door, and then at each other before they both choked out a surprised laugh.

“That wasn’t weird at all,” commented Lance. Keith snickered again and put his feet up on the other seat at his table. Lance finally noticed Keith was sitting at his and Pidge’s assigned table for history class.

“You know they’re married, right? Coran and Alfor?”

Lance stopped staring at the table and instead turned to Keith incredulously. “Mr. Smythe and Mr. Altea,” he asked, slowly, “Are married?”

Keith didn’t answer right away. He searched Lance’s face for any sort of judgement or disgust. Lance must’ve noticed, because he was quick to tack on, “Not that it’s any of my business or anything. I just hung out at Allura’s a lot last year, so I thought I would’ve noticed. That’s all.”

The other nodded in understanding, smiling gently. “I used to be really close with Allura, too. Her dad and Coran have been dating for a few years, but they only got married last summer.”

Lance nodded back, and the pair of them grew quiet again. They lowered their eyes, unsure of where to carry the conversation from there. It was awkwardly silent and extremely tense because of it. It’s not like the pair of them had ever had any bad experiences together besides the initial detention incident, it was just against high school moral code for the popular star of the football team to associate with the lone biker kid. It wasn’t exactly social suicide, but it was definitely a relationship that would turn heads.

Despite knowing that, Lance really wanted to talk about something. Anything, really. Even though nothing may come out of it, at least he wouldn’t have wasted an hour sitting in Mr. Smythe’s room in total silence. The only problem was finding a safe conversation topic that wouldn’t reveal Lance’s embarrassing schoolgirl crush on Keith.

But they didn’t even have anything to talk about, Lance reasoned in his head. He liked football and partying. Keith only hung out in small groups and probably didn’t like sports considering he was only ever involved in theater. He might be into soccer, though, Lance suddenly realized. After all, Keith’s elder brother Shiro was the captain before he graduated. That was a safe conversation topic, he decided, and opened his mouth.

“Do you-?” he began asking at the same time that Keith said, “Wanna blow-?”

Keith hushed to let the other continue, but Lance snapped his jaw shut and blushed bright red.

“W-what?” he stammered. He wished his mind hadn’t gone there, but it went there. It _definitely_ went there.

Keith furrowed his eyebrows.

“I was… just gonna ask if you wanted to blow this joint and find something better to do.”

Lance’s mouth formed an ‘o.’

“O-oh,” he stammered again. He cleared his throat and wished he had a full suit of armor to conceal the bright red blush creeping across his face and body better. “Um, no thanks,” he replied. “I wanna be able to play dodgeball on Monday.”

Keith smirked, swinging his legs down and standing up, shrugging.

“Suit yourself.” He grabbed his bag and leisurely strolled out of the door, still sporting the smug grin.

“Home,” Keith replied, not slowing his gait. He turned slightly. “Sure you don’t wanna come?”

Lance stopped dead in his tracks and laughed, the sound coming out more shocked and confused than anything. “No!”

Keith snickered. “Suit yourself,” he repeated. “Just thought I’d offer.” He walked backwards for a moment to wave. “Catch you later, quarterback.”

He spun back around and waltzed out of the front doors, suave as all hell. Lance was back to the staring. He watched Keith stride to his motorcycle and in one smooth motion hop on, slip on his helmet, kick the stand, and drive away.

Okay, so maybe Lance was a little smitten.

 

——

 

Keith would be lying if he said he wasn’t interested. He wasn’t sure why Lance had a problem with him at first, but he’d thought about the brief interaction they’d had on Friday all weekend. He didn’t do anything besides go to the gym with Shiro and go to work at the local auto shop, so he had more than enough time to over analyze everything.

“So why don’t you just talk to him?” Shiro had asked when they were watching a movie at the apartment. Keith scoffed as if it was the dumbest idea he had ever heard.

“Because he’s on the football team,” he replied, rolling his eyes. He hadn’t told Shiro exactly who had been keeping him preoccupied since his brother knew who Lance was, but he had still explained the situation with his crush and all of their interactions thus far. “I can’t just talk to a football player.”

“Why not?”

Keith opened up his mouth to explain why not, and realized there wasn’t really a valid excuse. After talking about it some more, he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to get to know Lance better. It was definitely out of character for his bad boy stereotype to want to associate with any popular kid, especially golden boy Lance, but it was his senior year and he figured it didn’t really matter anymore, if it ever had.

The only problem was that he didn’t exactly know how to go about getting to know Lance. The only reason either of them had spoken up was because they were forced into the same room together. After Lance turned down his initial invitation to hang out, he didn’t know what to do next.

So, he took a page from Lance’s book.

Coran ended up counting the fifteen minutes he’d spent in detention as an hour, so when school rolled around on Monday Keith figured he could start by signing up to watch the dodgeball tournament, where he knew Lance would be. Staring was far easier than he thought when Lance was only one of over one hundred kids in a gym. He knew it was probably creepy to stalk a guy for three hours just because he was cute, but Lance was really, _really_ cute and Keith had a thing for cute guys. By the second hour, Lance was in the zone and winning, so Keith knew he had made the right decision.

In the middle of the last hour, semi-finals produced the two teams that would compete during finals: Lance’s team, the No Punt Intendeds, which consisted of himself and five other football players, and Allura’s team, the Pom-Bombs, which consisted of herself and half of her cheer squad, Acxa, Ezor, Ethrid, Shay, and Narti. The gymnasium was full by this point, with the losing teams joining the spectators on the bleachers as well as the addition of students who signed up just to watch the final match.

A few seconds before it began, the No Punt Intendeds took their shirts off and let out a deafening war cry. Keith almost died on the spot. Seeing six sweaty, ripped football players shirtless was definitely worth sitting by himself for three hours.

It was now officially the elimination round, and one of the football players was the first to be benched via a slam to the chest by Shay. Narti was the next to go out, but the Pom-Bombs retaliated by fighting even harder until Lance was the sole survivor of the No Punt Intendeds.

“I hope you’re better at playing football than you are at dodgeball, McClain!” Ezor mocked, nearly hitting Lance in the shoulder with a fastball. The audience laughed, hyped up and positively thrumming from excitement.

“And I hope you’re better at dodging than you are at trash-talking,” Lance retorted, striking Ezor in the thigh before she could jump out of the way. The crowd cheered loudly, and Lance revelled in the attention until a ball came out of nowhere and smacked him in the side of the head.

“Take that, quarterback!” Allura yelled before she was drowned out by the screams in the gymnasium. Half of the crowd cheered, and the other half groaned, but everyone stormed the floor to celebrate the Pom-Bombs’ win regardless.

Keith made his way towards the door instead of going with everyone else. The experience he’d had over the last three hours only cemented in his mind that he had to work up the courage to talk to Lance, regardless of whether he had an excuse or not.

On Tuesday he nearly started a conversation during history class, but chickened out before even saying hello. In his fifth hour they watched a documentary that lasted the entire period, so he couldn’t get a word in edgewise without being scolded by the teacher. By seventh hour, Keith was frustrated beyond belief. What was the point of school if he never got the opportunity to talk to cute boys? All he wanted to do was say hello to Lance, or maybe kiss him. Maybe both. Preferably both.

“Hi.”

Keith was startled out of his thoughts by the greeting, and he looked to his left quickly. At some point Lance had slipped into the desk next to him, and was now staring at him. The look was a lot softer than the gazes he’d received the weeks before, and he could even see the corners of the other’s lips where they were tilted upwards. He looked away from Lance’s lips and back up to his eyes, almost blushing but pushing down his outward reaction to maintain his cool composure.

“Hey, Lance,” he replied, leaning back in his seat. “What’s up?”

“I noticed you were at the dodgeball tournament yesterday,” Lance said, balancing his chin on his propped up arm. “What’d you think?”

“I…” Keith said intelligently. He had figured that Lance wouldn’t have seen him amidst the crowd. “Uh,” he said.

Lance grinned and opened his mouth to say something else but before he could speak, the bell rang, announcing the end of class. Keith scrambled out of his seat, but paused before escaping the awkward confrontation. He tried slipping back into his cool demeanor long enough to say, “It was a good game. Nice job, Lance.”

On his way out, he cursed himself for ending the confrontation so abruptly and so strangely. It wasn’t that hard to carry a conversation or ask someone out, so why was it so hard with Lance? He wanted to talk to his brother about it again, but at the same time, he knew that if Shiro found out who his crush was he would talk to Matt, and Matt would talk to Pidge, and Pidge would talk to Lance. Keith just couldn’t let that happen. He was going to have to continue with the weird staring and hyperfixation until he was blessed with another forced encounter, because clearly he was bad at taking the initiative himself. So much for being the cool bad boy.

Lance was cursing himself, too. He probably should’ve gone over to Keith earlier so the bell wouldn’t have interrupted. Or maybe he shouldn’t have gone over at all. He had absolutely no clue and really needed to talk about it to someone. Pidge wanted to come over after he was done with football practice, but he knew he would end up talking about Keith and she would talk to Matt, and Matt would talk to Shiro, and Shiro would talk to Keith. That would be absolutely mortifying, so instead he called his best friend to use as a complaint companion.

“It was horrible,” he told Hunk, hanging upside down over the side of his bed. The first hour of the call was dedicated to a dramatic retelling of the detention incident, the dodgeball tournament, and the botched conversation last hour. “It’s like all of my flirting skills completely disappear as soon as I get near him!”

Hunk took a second to reply. Lance could tell that he was playing a video game and wasn’t all that invested in their conversation. “Maybe you don’t have any flirting skills regardless,” he suggested, slurping on a beverage directly into the microphone.

“Hunk!” Lance yelled in annoyance, slipping off of his bed and onto the floor. “You are not helping!”

A sigh carried over from the other side of the line. Hunk paused his game and changed the call to FaceTime. Lance picked up, pouting and in an awkward, twisted-up half sit half lay from where he’d refused to move after tumbling off his bed. Hunk sighed again, looking at his best friend in pity.

“Really, dude? This serious?”

Lance simply nodded back, pouting even harder than he had been before. Hunk sighed a third time. He contemplated for only a second before replying.

“I’ll help you out if you stop moping and play this game with me.”

Lance shot up straight and grinned from ear to ear.

“Thanks buddy! I owe you big time. I really like him and-“

“I know,” Hunk interrupted with a smirk and roll of his eyes. “Now put your stupid headset on and play with me.”

Although Lance was the quarterback, Hunk had always been the most social kid at school. His girlfriend Shay was a cheerleader, he was on the football team, plus he was generally a kind person, so he had a lot of connections. The next day he found the perfect time to put Lance by Keith without it being suspicious.

“Trust me,” he told Lance, dragging him out to the football field during lunch instead of sitting at their usual table, “He’s gonna come sit out here.”

They started tossing a football around and since their homecoming game was in two short days, it looked natural. Lance almost cheered when he saw two figures climb onto and sit at the top of the band bleachers situated directly on the field. That set of bleachers was smaller and closer to the football field than the normal bleachers that surrounded the whole stadium, so it was easy for Lance to confirm his assumptions.

Keith leaned over to Lotor as soon as they sat down, face flushed red.

“Did you know they were out here?”

Lotor kept scrolling through the timeline on his phone. “Hm?” he replied belatedly, not bothering to glance up.

Keith scoffed, rolling his eyes. The fake indifference was answer enough. His friend took an apple out of his lunch bag and held it out as an apology and peace offering. Keith grabbed it wordlessly and looked back towards the field, watching Lance and who he assumed to be Hunk toss the ball back and forth only a couple dozen yards away from them while he snacked on the fruit.

After a few minutes of staring, which he seemed to be doing a lot of lately, he turned back to Lotor.

“Hey, do you think- oof!”

His sentence was interrupted by something hard slamming into his chest, knocking him sideways off the bleachers and onto the ground below. The impact from falling from such a height was brutal and knocked the wind out of him, making him groan in pain. Keith stared up at the sky after landing, out of breath and dazed. He heard both cackling from above and and panicked screaming to his side that was getting closer, and after a few short moments a figure stood over him, blocking the sun.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! I can’t believe I just did that! Are you okay?”

Keith immediately recognized the blabbering to be Lance’s, who had since dropped to his knees beside him to make sure he was still alive.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Lance repeated, panic written all over his face. “I can’t believe that just happened. I am so, _so_ sorry!”

Keith didn’t reply at first, taking a little time to orient himself, blinking harshly a few times. After doing so, he started laughing as much as his probably bruised chest would let him.

“Ouch,” he said, and then went right back to laughing. Lance still had the horrified expression on his face, and the strange reaction from Keith only scared him more. After his giggling fit subsided, Keith held out a hand to Lance who quickly helped him sit up.

“That’s one way to get a guy’s attention,” he said once he was up, looking at Lance. He burst out laughing again, and this time Lance joined in, albeit more cautiously.

“I didn’t meant to hit you,” Lance explained once the laughter faded, sincerely but still embarrassed. “I wasn’t paying attention to Hunk and I threw too hard. I’m sorry.”

“Hmm…,” Keith replied, appearing to be thinking very hard. He searched Lance’s face. “I don’t know if I can forgive you.”

Lance stared at him, flabbergasted. Was he serious? Was this seriously going to be the end of whatever they had going on between them? It was a freak accident and he didn’t mean to smack him with a football. He opened his mouth to protest, but Keith continued before he could speak.

“Unless you go on a date with me, that is. I think I could forgive you then.”

He smirked, satisfied with the blush that spread across Lance’s face.

“What?” Lance asked dumbly.

“If you let me take you on a date right now I’ll forgive you,” Keith explained, standing up surprisingly fast for someone that had just taken a fall.

Lance stupidly wondered if it was because he was used to getting roughed up. He was supposed to be a rowdy biker, after all. He was still on that train of thought when he realized Keith had extended a hand towards him to help him up from his kneeling position, and he quickly moved on to think about Keith’s proposition.

“A date?” he repeated, grabbing on and letting himself be hauled up. Keith squeezed his hand once before releasing it.

“A date,” he confirmed, smiling and brushing the dirt off of his skinny jeans. “Right now.”

“Right now?!”

“You know, this is getting pretty repetitive,” Keith commented, still smiling at him. “Yes, right now. You in or you out?”

Lance closed his jaw, which had been left agape. He figured he should stop acting the way he was and simply accept the total blessing he had just received. All his life, Lance had been cool and confident when flirting with people he didn’t think he had a chance with, but the moment he felt there was even the slightest chance something could actually happen, he panicked. Hence the awkward few weeks of back and forth with Keith. But thankfully the universe took pity on him and helped him out, so now all he had to do was say yes.

“Okay,” he replied. Keith blinked at him once, as if not expecting that answer.

“Okay?” he repeated. Lance nodded at him, smiling back now.

“Okay,” Keith said again, smiling even more. “Let’s go, then.”

Lance took a moment to turn around to where Hunk had been observing the scene and received a thumbs up from his best friend for his efforts. The initial jitteriness from the incident, however, began to fade as he walked beside Keith on the way off the field and to the student parking lot. Sure, he was still excited, but he was anxious now, too.

“Hey,” Keith said, throwing out an arm to stop Lance from walking any farther. “You know I was kidding, right?”

Lance stared at him blankly. Kidding about what? He wasn’t kidding about asking him on the date, was he? Keith sensed the trepidation and put his arm down, turning to him fully.

“I’m gonna forgive you even if you don’t wanna go,” he said, the humor he had in his voice back out in the field replaced with a softer, more sincere tone. “I know you don’t like skipping class, and I don’t even know if you’re comfortable going out with guys, so if you would rather not, that’s okay.”

“I absolutely wanna go out with you!” Lance blurted. Keith blinked once, and Lance barked out a laugh. “Wow, I sound desperate. Sorry. I’m a little obsessed with you.”

He took a moment to physically cringe.

“That sounded desperate too. Wow. This is not going well for me.”

But Keith just laughed at him fondly, and Lance almost melted at the sound that was music to his ears. This was probably the best day of his life.

“Okay, I’ll put you out of your misery and cut you short,” Keith said, walking again. “Just making sure.”

Lance didn’t reply, just silently cursed himself in his head for being so weird. How could someone spend their entire life flirting but not be able to handle someone flirting back? So much for being the cool-under-pressure quarterback, he thought bitterly. But he figured he was in the company of a cute guy, so he should put the overthinking on hold, at least for a little while.

They walked side by side out to the parking lot and suddenly realized how they would be getting to their date.

“You ever been on a bike before?” Keith asked him once they had come to a stop beside the motorcycle. He took a spare helmet out of a compartment under the seat and tucked it under his arm.

“Never in my life,” Lance replied, “And I am terrified.”

Keith laughed again, and for once Lance was thankful he was naturally a goofball. He was pretty sure he could listen to Keith laugh without stopping for the rest of his life, and he would never need anything else to be happy.

“That’s okay. You can hang onto me.”

Keith said it nonchalantly, and immediately after slipped the helmet onto Lance’s head and clipped it on for him. They hadn’t even left yet and he was already enjoying their date. He somehow knew which buttons to push that put an incredibly cute ‘holy shit I’m in for it now’ look on Lance’s face.

“Ready to go?” he asked with a smile, hopping onto his bike and extending a hand.

“Absolutely!” the other responded, accepting the help to climb onto the back.

As Keith started the engine, Lance became aware of their audience. It wasn’t only Hunk and Lotor who were still creeping on them from over on the field, but dozens of other students spending their lunch hour outside the school to relish in the weather before winter forced them back inside as well. He realized that he wasn’t really worried about the rumors or possible social repercussions like he thought he would be, though. Honestly, he felt a little prideful to be the first person ever to ride on the notorious Keith Kogane’s custom built ride. Even with the matching helmets, he felt like a badass.

Until the engine revved and the bike lurched forward, when Lance downright screeched and flung his arms around Keith’s waist in a panic. Any embarrassment from the action was beaten down with a stick when a laugh floated back to him from the front of the bike. Even if he died in a freak accident like his fear-riddled brain was telling him, at least he had made the guy he had been crushing on forever laugh for the millionth time that day.

Ten minutes into the ride and he still didn’t really know where they were going, but he trusted Keith. As the ride went on, he even found himself  relaxing and enjoying himself more. He finally recognized where they were when Keith pulled over. Nestled between two skyscrapers downtown was Vrepit Sal’s Diner, a cozy building home to the best food joint in the city. Lance had spent plenty of time there, but never on a date. He was grateful his date had such good taste.

“Lunch,” Keith explained when he helped Lance off the bike, “Since I cut yours short.” He even held the door open on their way in, like a true gentleman. Lance was officially wooed. After the waitress had seated them Keith said, “I’ll pay since you gave in to peer pressure and skipped class with me.”

But Lance was having none of that.

“I hit you with a football,” he said very seriously. “Let me buy you a milkshake.”

Keith laughed again—Lance hoped the sound never ceased to amaze him—and threw up his hands in mock defeat.

“If you insist.”

Lance did insist, and paid for a burger, fries, and a milkshake for each of them. Thankfully all of his awkward mannerisms from before had all but disappeared, and he quickly became comfortable being alone with Keith. Even so, their conversations started out lame and mostly about school, like what they were gonna do after graduation.

“I’m probably going to keep working at the garage until I save up enough to buy it or start my own,” Keith said, sipping on his vanilla shake. “I don’t know if I’m gonna go to college.”

“Me either,” Lance replied. “I’m kinda hoping to get a full ride for football, but I also don’t want my life to be solely football. I don’t wanna be one of those guys that lives the rest of his life talking about the glory days of high school. I’d rather enjoy them while they’re happening, y’know?”

Keith nodded in understanding. He had never really been the kind of guy to thrive in high school, but he knew people like Lance did. He was thankful that Lance was at least looking forward to the future, rather than being upset that he would have to leave the environment he was used to.

Their conversation only flourished from there. Keith learned that besides football, Lance loved to sing and dance, play the guitar, and do about a million other things that made up who he was. It was fascinating, and he was sure to remember each and every detail; he wanted to know everything there was to know about Lance.

They were different in many ways but similar in countless others, such as what they found funny: everything. They probably turned the head of every patron in the restaurant with how many times one of them burst out laughing. In one instance, Keith found something Lance said so funny that his milkshake almost came out of his nose.

“We should go out again sometime,” Lance said some time later, playing with his straw even though their food and beverages were long gone. Keith was far more relaxed than he was at the beginning of the day, and poking fun at his counterpart came easy to him.

“As long as you ask me out like a normal person and I don’t get hit with any other flying objects,” he bantered back, smiling when the comment made Lance laugh again.

“I think I can handle that.”

The pair were still all smiles when they exited the building, considerably more sated than they’d been before. They had spent the afternoon talking, but the silence they slipped into on the way over to Keith’s bike was just as comfortable.

Although he wasn’t scared of being on a motorcycle anymore, Lance still kept his arms wrapped tightly around Keith on the ride back over to the school.

For safety reasons, of course.

When they arrived, Keith pulled right up to the front of the school and parked without cutting the engine. The students outside the school had nearly quadrupled from their departure at lunch time since it was only a few minutes after the last bell rang, and tons of curious eyes turned their way.

They both got off the bike and turned to each other.

“We’re right on time, so your coach won’t be angry,” Keith said, slipping his hands into his pockets and leaning against his ride. He paused for a moment before continuing. “Your teachers might be, though.”

Lance chuckled in response, still feeling elated from the past few hours. “I appreciate that,” he grinned. “By the way, as much as I wanna go out again, I’m gonna be busy with football until after my game on Friday. So just know I’m not ignoring you or anything.”

“No worries,” Keith replied, staring at Lance with a stupid grin on his face.

Lance squirmed under the gaze, blushing lightly. After a few seconds of silence, he caved and asked, “What?”

When there was no reply, just a smirk, his face began turning properly red. “No, really. What?!”

Keith stepped away from bike, still smirking.

“I was just thinking about how I would try to kiss you if half the school wasn’t watching,” he said nonchalantly, tucking a stray piece of hair behind Lance’s ear.

Lance was pretty sure his brain was broken.

“Next time, then,” he sputtered out, making Keith laugh.

“Next time,” he confirmed, stepping back towards his motorcycle. “I’ll see you later, yeah?” he asked while climbing onto it.

Lance was genuinely debating quitting football, school, and whatever other commitments he had going on in his life if it meant he would never have to leave Keith’s side ever again. A little dramatic, maybe, but he was gay and desperate. Alas, the real world beckoned, and jumping the gun wouldn’t do him any good. He knew his clingy, obsessive heart was just thrilled to find a valid target of affection that would actually reciprocate for the first time. If he acted weird on the first date, there wouldn't be a second. He knew would just have to wait for later. All in good time, he reasoned to himself.

“Yeah. Hasta la later, Keith.”

Keith responded with another two-finger salute, a vague reference to their first half-interaction. To the pair of them felt like it was years ago, when it was really only a few short weeks ago on the first day of school. Time flies when two teenage boys spend every waking moment stressing over their huge crushes on each other.

Lance watched his date drive away, then turned around to face the school. Hunk was sitting on the steps, and urgently waved him over when they made eye contact. He didn’t even get the chance to open his mouth before Lance began word-vomiting.

“Oh my god, Hunk! You won’t believe the day I just had! It was so… just so…”

He couldn’t find the words, so he let out an excited screech instead.

“I hear you, pal,” Hunk replied, patting him on the back and guiding him towards the field for football practice. “Tell me about it.”

Lance was more than happy to indulge.

 

——

 

Lance wasn’t kidding when he said he was busy. On Thursday, Keith hadn’t found a single moment to stop and chat with him. Even after getting his number from Pidge, he figured he shouldn’t bother him outside of school, so instead Keith spent a solid hour debating whether to put heart emojis after Lance’s contact name or not. It was now Friday, so only a short while from when they had last spoken to each other on Wednesday, but Keith was downright suffering.

It was strange for him because he used to be so comfortable being a lone wolf, finding solace in himself for the majority of his life. Now, though, he couldn’t help but miss the bright, bubbly Lance he had gotten attached to in such a short amount of time. He was currently sulking around his locker at the end of the day because Lance hadn’t been in any of their shared afternoon classes. Preparing for the homecoming game that night, he assumed.

“Come on, don’t tell me you’re this dumb!” Pidge snorted as she approached, stopping in front of him with her hands on her hips. Keith glanced up and raised an eyebrow at her inquisitively, a slight pout on his face. She shook her head, presumably in a demeaning way.

“You’ve been pouting since yesterday when you didn’t get to talk to Lance in any of your classes. It was funny at first, but now it’s just sad.”

“I’m not pouting!” Keith protested, crossing his arms in defiance as if it would make her any less spot-on. It was Pidge’s turn to raise an eyebrow, an unimpressed expression adorning her face to go along with it.

Their mini-glaring battle ended with Keith sighing in defeat.

“Okay, so maybe I’m pouting, but why do you care?”

In a rare appearance of her friendly persona, Pidge stepped forward and placed a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“It’s annoying to see you all mopey like this. Just go to his football game, you oversized baby.”

It was an insult just as much as it was an ingenious idea, and Keith realized it was the best solution to see Lance as soon as possible. He hadn’t gone to a sporting event since Shiro’s last high school soccer game, but he was absolutely willing to make an exception when Lance was involved.

He was even willing to make it a regular thing, if things went his way with Lance.

“You’re so smart,” he told Pidge. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re dumb and I’m better than you,” Pidge replied sweetly, patting him twice before stepping back to her previous location. “Now go away before I make you pay me for my services.”

He did just that, shutting his locker and walking away from his friend as fast as he could with a smile plastered across his face. What with how much he had been doing so lately, Keith was certain either his face would split in half or be stuck in a grin for the rest of his life. Given who was causing the expression, though, Keith was okay with that.

Later that night, the Garrison Lions were stretching in preparation for their match against their rivals, the Galra Grizzlies. Although the result of the game would have no effect on whether they’d advance to state much later in the season, the pressure on the football team to win was definitely stressing them out. Their coach, Blaytz, had total faith in them, and they knew they were good, but it was all a matter of whether their opponents were better.

The bleachers were filled to the brim of excited fans ready to see how the game would play out, all chattering excitedly. As the quarterback, Lance led the team huddle that preluded the event.

“Alright team, we’ve been working hard. We got this!” The team shouted a noise of assent and waved their fists in the air, yelling incoherently.

And so the game began.

Quarter one was ultimately uneventful. It was a chilly fall evening, so it took both teams a while to get warmed up. Quarter two, however, was when the competition really began.

The Lions were the first to score a touchdown, and the fans went absolutely wild. The previously sleepy stadium seemed to once again burst into a chatty crowd of superfans screaming commands as if the football players would hear and listen and change their strategies. The cheerleaders led by Allura even did some crowd cheers, which the fans were keen to participate in as loud as possible.

Keith dumbly wished Lance was sitting next to him to see if he, too, would be screaming along to, “Let’s go, Lions! Let’s go!” with everyone else. He had a feeling he would be. Obviously, though, he was on the field fighting for the Garrison’s pride.

Despite attending the game by himself, Keith found he enjoyed feeling of being a part of something. It felt a lot like his days in theater the years prior, and he considered dropping his lone wolf act completely and joining the masses of high school students again. It would help him fit in more, especially if he were to start hanging out with Lance and the other stereotypical ‘popular’ kids.

Lost in thought, Keith was caught by surprise when the entire stadium started screaming again. The time had dwindled down to zero and halftime had begun. While many fans went for a brief bathroom break or wandered down to concessions, the cheer squad had taken over the field and caused the remaining people on the bleachers to watch in awe as they began their show.

Keith was so amazed at the twists, flips, and every other move choreographed into perfect routine that he didn’t notice another person approaching him until they plopped down beside him.

“She’s amazing, huh?” Pidge said, holding a large container of nachos in her small hands. Keith looked to where she was fixated on Allura, smack dab in the center of the field and directing the other cheerleaders.

“I forgot how much I enjoyed high school events,” he mused in response. “Thanks for the suggestion, Pidge.”

She paused the destruction of her snack to bark out something sarcastic, but stopped before the punchline. As much as she enjoyed being the witty friend, she found it counterproductive to do anything that would damage the potential relationship between the friends she and Hunk had worked so hard to establish. Instead, she nodded and gave a toothy smile that revealed the neon yellow cheese in her teeth.

Keith scoffed, but laughed all the same.

The game seemed to go much faster after that, since he had a companion. So far, although he barely knew anything about football, he was planning to come to pretty much every game for the rest of the year. Not only for the high school experience like he had been thinking about earlier, but for Lance as well.

There wasn’t a single doubt in Keith’s mind that he wanted to be Lance’s boyfriend, and coming to the games would be a great way to support him.

Quarter three was similar to quarter one whereas nothing really happened, but the final quarter of the game was where the suspense really came into play. At the start of it, the score was 14 to 7 with the Lions in the lead, but the Grizzlies soon scored again to bring it up to a tie with only a few minutes until the clock ran down. The tension only amplified when the sky suddenly began pouring rain down onto the field and everyone in it.

Pidge bailed at that point, since she probably had various electronics stashed on her persons, but Keith stayed with the rest of the crowd to see the result of the game. The Lions called for a time out and from his position on the bleachers he could see Lance clear as day, taking off his helmet to address his team firmly. Despite knowing the bare minimum about football, Keith still sensed that something epic was about to occur.

The bleachers were once again alive with energy, the crowd wondering which of the two teams would win the game. When the whistle blew, everyone was on the edge of their seats and screaming for their favored team at the top of their lungs.

Keith tried to keep up with what was going on, but ended up just watching Lance the whole time. With only a few seconds to spare, he watched the quarterback take off running with the ball. Before he could register what that meant, the buzzer sounded and the fans went crazy. He glanced at the scoreboard, and saw that the Lions had won 16 to 14 with whatever Lance’s move was being the thing to grant them the victory. If he was gonna start coming to the games, he should probably figure out what the heck was going on during them.

People began descending from the bleachers and storming the field to go celebrate with their beloved football team. Unlike how he had fled during the dodgeball tournament, Keith was on a mission this time. He pushed through the crowd with determination until he found Lance, surrounded by other players and friends. Free of his soaked uniform and helmet, he was positively radiating from the attention he was receiving for his part in the win. From over his shoulder, Hunk saw Keith, and gestured for Lance to turn around.

“Hey, quarterback,” Keith greeted. Lance launched himself forward until he stood in front of him, grinning from ear to ear.

“Keith! You came!”

Keith grinned back at him, but he couldn’t respond at first. He was too transfixed on Lance and the overwhelming feelings he induced. He wasn’t planning on doing anything at that moment, since whatever they had was so new, but he just couldn’t help it. He was falling for the quarterback.

“Lance,” he said softly, stepping even closer and placing a hand on Lance’s chest, “Do you remember when I told you I wouldn’t kiss you because a bunch of people from school were watching?”

Lance blinked at him, wondering if what he was secretly hoping to happen was happening.

“Uh, yeah?”

“Well,” Keith continued, speaking just loud enough for Lance to hear, “A lot more people are around us now, but I really, really want to kiss you.”

It didn’t matter to Lance that he had just won his homecoming game, or that everyone he knew was surrounding him, or even that he was drenched in rain. He didn’t care about anything else except for the boy in front of him and what he had just stated.

“Okay,” he replied.

Keith, ever the charmer, smirked and started referencing their date from a few days before.

“Oka-?” he began, but Lance cut him off by leaning down and initiating the kiss.

It was soft, and slow, but it was perfect. It was them.

When Lance pulled away just slightly, his eyes were sparkling.

“I should win my games more often,” he commented. Keith laughed, and Lance’s heart somehow beat even faster than it already was. The sound would absolutely never get old.

“Yes, you should,” Keith replied, reaching up for another kiss. Before he got the chance to, a very loud “aww!” interrupted him. They turned and saw Hunk all but fangirling over the pair of them.

“This is even cuter than I imagined!” he squealed, hands on his heart as if he was a proud mom. Lance rolled his eyes, realizing that his best friend was mocking him. He looked back at Keith and adorned a deadpan expression.

“I hope you understand that you’re subjecting yourself to this every day, now. No backsies,” he said.

Keith nodded back, just as serious.

“Of course. It’s pretty much a binding contract, right?”

Lance didn’t have a witty response to that one and simply burst out laughing. This was probably the best day of his entire life.

“Hey, we should go get some milkshakes at Vrepit Sal’s!” Hunk interjected, pushing his way in between them. “I’ll text Pidge, too!”

They began walking off the field and Lance grabbed Keith’s hand, linking their fingers together with a happy sigh. Senior year was about to get a whole lot better.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so happy to have been part of this project! Thank you to the wonderful artist Virvanna, and to the fantastic beta Ashley who was a huge help. I wouldn't have finished this without her. You're both amazing and I'm so happy I got to work with you!
> 
> The title is inspired by the song "Glory Days" by Sweater Beats featuring Hayley Kiyoko.
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!


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